TOPIC: Can you tell it's winter?

Every winter I get thinking of ways to change the sport. Try to increase participation and popularity. When I talk to friends some who ski and some who don't they always ask how I am doing in points. So here is what I am thinking....

We create a point system for every tournament. Where you take the highest average to establish the point total. For example. M2 division has a number 1 seed with an average of 100 bouys. So the point break down goes first 10 points second place 8 points third place 6 points and so on to fifth place. The way you qualify for Nationals would be based off the points. Be in the top 75 in your division in points and you are in. At the end of the year you could have a Nationals tournament champion and a points total champion.

I think this could increase tournament participation because you would need to ski a few tournaments to be competitive. It would also allow for a little more competition on the dock as your tournament placement would mean something.

Down sides... People like me and others in the North are at a disadvantage as we can't ski as many tournaments. I would also exclude open or master rated skiers. I feel that would be necessary to keep the playing field even. A skier shouldn't get 12 points because they came in second to Nate smith skiing age division.

Maybe you could weight certain tournaments heavier like regionals is a 25 point tournament. Just spit balling.

I was going over my scores from this year. I skied 20 tournament rounds. I skied well in two R tournaments so those are the two scores for my average. That means 90% of my tournament rounds meant nothing. I have also skied three tournaments after nationals that give me an average well above the level 8 cutoff. In theory there is no reason for me to ski another tournament until regionals 2019. Now I will ski tournaments between now and then because I enjoy tournament skiing. If you are a good skier you really only have the incentive to ski three class C or two R tournaments a year outside of regionals and Nationals.

DW in my little area of the world there is a large number of people who ski and chase bouys but will never ski a tournament. There is one club that has a course and I assume they use it as it has new bouys every year. Have never even met one person from that club.... Not even in a grassroots tournament. I have sent invitations to the club mailing address. I guess they don't see the fun in the current format and maybe they never will.

The more I am involved and the more I see, the more I understand some of the problems.

I push aggressively for people to get more involved. If enough new people get involved, we might can help.

Here is a small example. Currently people are punished for not skiing enough tournaments. I like the way Travis thinks to reward people for skiing more tournaments. The ranking list should accurately show where we stand with our achieved scores, and NOT reduced by punishments and penalties.

AWSA complains that not enough people go to the Nationals. So, let them ski one tournament and if they get a high enough score, let them participate in the Nationals. They may come to like it more and ski more tournaments.

The following penalties are in the AWSA rule book:

A skier having fewer than three tournament scores will have a penalty applied to the average of the scores they do have, in the respective classes reported, based on the table below:

Scores and Classes Situation Penalty
One score class C 10%
One score class E or above 5%
Two scores both class C 5%
One score class E or above and one score class C 2.5%
If a skier has two or more tournament scores, then the official Ranking Score will be the highest of the following possibilities:

The best single score with penalty for that one score according to the chart above.
The average of the best two scores with penalty for those two scores according to the chart above.
The average of the best three scores with no penalty."

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